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alternately rich and poor, and
Gaylord is occasionally unfaithful to his wife and belittles her. Years later, upon hearing that Parthy is coming to visit, and finding himself broke, he borrows money from the local whorehouse madam and returns, completely drunk, to the boarding house at which they are living. As he sleeps, Magnolia goes to the whorehouse to return the money, is horrified and saddened to discover that her old friend Julie is working as a secretary there, and comes back to the boarding house to discover that Ravenal has abandoned her (Magnolia). He never returns, and Magnolia brings up their daughter alone. Ravenal eventually dies under unexplained circumstances, in San Francisco. Years later, after Parthy dies, Magnolia returns to Mississippi to manage the show boat and gives her daughter all of Parthy's inheritance money.
185:(this is made possible by Julie, who, now an alcoholic, secretly quits her job so that Magnolia can have it). Magnolia then goes on to become a Broadway star, with the encouragement of her father, Cap'n Andy, all the while raising her daughter alone. Twenty-three years later, when Magnolia retires and she and her now adult daughter (now a Broadway star herself) return to the boat for a family reunion, Gaylord is there waiting. He and Magnolia reconcile, and all is well.
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In the musical, Gaylord
Ravenal is a much more sympathetic character. None of the characters in the story die in the musical, and Gaylord remains faithful to Magnolia. The pair moves to Chicago with their daughter, as in the novel, but not because of Parthy's nagging. Rather, Gaylord wants to show
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In the musical, Magnolia and
Ravenal meet in the first scene of the show, and before Julie and Steve ever leave (this was done by Kern and Hammerstein in order to bring Ravenal into the story much earlier). In the novel the two meet right after Ravenal is hired as leading man, and long after Julie
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In the novel, they stay on the boat until shortly after the accidental drowning of Cap'n Andy during a storm. Because of the incessant nagging of
Magnolia's mother, Parthy, they leave the boat with their baby daughter and move to Chicago, where they live off Gaylord's gambling earnings. They are
161:(to whom Magnolia was especially close) and her white husband Steve Baker. In the musical, Magnolia and Ravenal become the leading players on the boat immediately after Julie and Steve are forced to leave the show, not years later.
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at the same time that
Magnolia Hawks, the captain's daughter, becomes the leading lady. In the novel, this happens after several of the company's leading men and ladies have left, including the illegally married mulatto
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Magnolia the big city. He deserts her after ten years, not because he fears the wrath of Parthy, but because he feels guilty over his gambling losses and his inability to support
Magnolia. She gets a job as a
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played the role. In the 1946 stage revival, a version revised to accommodate a slightly shorter running time by Kern and
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Magnolia and
Gaylord fall in love and marry after a whirlwind courtship, and here again the novel and the musical differ.
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based on the novel, and in the films made from it. He is a handsome, compulsive riverboat
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484:André Previn and Friends Play Show Boat
517:Literary characters introduced in 1926
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238:Technicolor remake of the musical
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209:. In 1929,
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138:Jerome Kern
501:Categories
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189:Portrayals
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